It was rather lovely to meet the inspirational Richard and Sandra after they had completed the event, thanks to Elaine for mentioning their great achievement in completing so many walks of 100 miles or more. Below is the text that I put on the LDWA’s Facebook page:
“The amazing Richard and Sandra Brown after completing the Flower of Suffolk 100.
This is Richard’s 150th 100 mile (or more!) event and Sandra’s 220th 100 mile (or more!) event. Both started their LDWA 100 career in 1982 and Sandra has completed 23 LDWA 100s and Richard slightly fewer than 20. It’s fair to say, that’s a lot of walking.
On today’s walk, Sandra said “it was a brilliant event, the route description was excellent, the checkpoints were uniformly wonderful and it was a lovely walk”, with Richard adding that “we didn’t know the area, it’s lovely to be here”.”
Just to finish off my riveting series of posts about the LDWA Flower of Suffolk 100, I decided to just stay at the event all day on Sunday until the last entrant was in. One could say that I’m a loyal servant of the LDWA or, equally, one could comment that I was too tight to pay for a third night of hotels. It is true though that I like being at the event near to the end, it’s when so much excitement comes in and the entrants who have walked throuh two nights come in. Here’s the lovely Susanna who arrived to help in the kitchen, a particularly generous offer of help as she was going straight to Hay in the morning and her sleep was planned for the car journey.
The evening and early morning menu.
The tracker screen went off so we had to look at this all night. Simon and I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t quite what we had expected to watch.
A rather peaceful view from the roof of the sports centre that we were based in for the weekend.
A really rather lovely breakfast, many thanks to the chefs!
Richard fixing his computer.
Richard didn’t do a rota for the event, so I helpfully did one. I note Simon let him see it….
There aren’t many photos of the actual event as I moved to a role of welcoming entrants back in, but the media unit has lots of footage of this and will be producing numerous videos. As usual, the event is over-catered and that’s necessary to ensure that entrants don’t go hungry, but it also has the advantage of meaning that I had a second breakfast. Jayne did a marvellous job of dealing with all the catering, she did the event proud once again.
This is the hall where all the action was taking place just a couple of days before. It is strange to see a space empty, then so full of people and excitement, then empty again.
And Simon eating again.
Anyway, that’s mostly the end of my little series of LDWA 100 related posts, although I’ve recorded lots of footage and taken lots of photos for the media team, so there might be some more highlights to come. Thanks again to all of the volunteers, their contributions were very much appreciated and there are so many stories still to come from the event.
One of the handy things about my walking the last stretch of the walk with Łukasz was that I decided I was sort of eligible for a certificate. And I’ll treasure it!
One of the friends I was tracking around the event was Łukasz, who is a naturally very brave person who I’ve obviously inspired over the years. He was starting to tire towards the end, so as a treat for him, I decided that Richard could drive me to the last checkpoint and I’ll walk back. I’d add that Richard didn’t walk back, as it’s three miles and Łukasz and I didn’t have time to wait for him to faff about.
Navigating back, these dangerous looking cows were visible and I’m glad that they were the other side of the fence. It’s fair to say that Łukasz was not finding these three miles the easiest, but he was determined to keep going even though he wondered whether he should have retired earlier. There’s a huge amount of the 100 that is a mental challenge and Łukasz certainly has that resilience. Also known as stubbornness, but that’s fine.
It was only just getting dark, a lot of the entrants walked through two nights, but Łukasz was only really going through one other than these last couple of miles.
I wouldn’t normally take a photo of an entrant worn out, but it’s Łukasz and he’d expect me to.
I of course had a finish beer for him. The on-site medic looked at his feet which weren’t in the poor state that Łukasz had feared which is all to the good.
So ruddy bloody brave, and he was back up on his feet the next day being courageous and strong.
As the second day unfolded, Sunday proved to be an exciting affair with the entrants starting to come in which kept us busy and slowed down my progress on this blog. Here’s Richard on his strict diet.
Well, how lovely.
Peter deliberately brought bananas to annoy me.
A little jacket potato snack.
The wonderful Karen after completing another event and she always looks nearly exactly the same at the end as at the beginning of the event, so graceful!
And well down to Rob on his completion, beating his fastest previous time by some hours.
Some of the hundreds of trackers.
The steak pies were delicious….. I’d add there’s more to the event than food. Maybe.
I’m back at HQ now until the end of the event tomorrow and I thought I’d walk through the area that the finishers will walk through right at the end of their big adventure. The event ends with steps just to add to their excitement.
First aid will be at hand.
A quick bacon roll for breakfast. And another coffee.
Andy faffing with the external decorations.
Entrants, and entrants alone, will walk up the tunnel of love or whatever it’s called. Because every entrant wants to walk up some metal steps at the end of 100 miles. But we like adding some drama 🙂
The sun is shining.
Certificates from the overnight finishers.
And Simon back at the helm of the event, what could possibly go wrong?
It’s getting towards midnight and that means Richard and I go to our respective hotels for a little sleep whilst the titan that is Peter takes over for the night-time period. The event will be in safe hands! Here’s Richard training Peter….
For anyone interested (and I accept that this event hasn’t finished yet), the 2026 LDWA 100 will be held in Kent and it’s called the Hunnypot Hundred. As noted on the flyer, it has that name to mark the 100th anniversary of the publication of Winnie the Pooh.
Personally I’d like 100 miles of roads, but I understand that the vast majority of entrants don’t, so they’ll be pleased that 83 miles are on fields and in woods.
